Who's going to be the female lead's simp? Aren't the supporting female characters mor

At two in the morning, the hustle and bustle of Beijing receded like the tide, leaving only the dim yellow glow of the streetlights that lengthened the shadows of pedestrians.

The Maybach's windows were half-lowered, letting in a blast of cold air that carried away the faint aroma of crayfish inside the car.

"Cutting off the supply of building materials—it's an old trick, but it's undeniably deadly." Bai Qing leaned back in his chair, his brow furrowed, his fingers unconsciously tapping his knee. "Zhao Hongtu controls nearly 40% of the building materials distribution channels in Beijing, and the remaining 60% have to give him some face. If the cement and steel bars don't get to the construction site by tomorrow morning, a day of work stoppage will mean a loss of millions, and moreover…"

She paused, her tone grave: "And it will trigger a chain reaction. Banks will reassess the risks, partners who had previously agreed to cooperate will adopt a wait-and-see approach, and even DeepBlue Technology's stock price will be affected."

This is a classic example of a domino effect in business; once the first one is knocked down, the rest will automatically collapse.

Bai Jingyou was toying with the trophy he had won from Zhao Hongtu. Although it was just a metaphor, he was indeed feeling like he was playing with a walnut.

"Sister, do you know what Zhao Hongtu's biggest weakness is?" Bai Jingyou turned his head, his eyes clear and bright, showing no signs of tension before the battle.

"greedy?"

"No, it's arrogance." Bai Jingyou chuckled. "He thinks the rules of this world are still the same ones he set in the teahouse. Have a cup of tea, offer a cigarette, and the deal's done. Make a phone call, send a message, and the road is closed. But he's forgotten that nowadays people do business not out of loyalty, but to make money."

He took out his phone, opened the beta version of an app called Deep Blue Supply Chain, and handed it to Bai Qing.

"What is this?" Bai Qing took the phone, looking at the dense data stream and order matching interface, somewhat puzzled.

"Lin Lanfeng hasn't been idle these past two weeks." Bai Jingyou pointed to the jumping green dots on the screen. "Zhao Hongtu's so-called network is actually an extremely long and inefficient debt chain. He pressures the first-level agents to pay, the first-level agents pressure the second-level agents, and the second-level agents pressure the manufacturers. Those suppliers call him 'Fourth Master' not out of respect, but because they're afraid of not getting their final payments."

Bai Jingyou's voice was eerily calm: "If someone were to jump out right now and tell those suppliers, 'Give me the goods, I won't hold onto payment, cash on delivery, or even a 30% prepayment,' do you think they would choose Fourth Master's face or the cash in their bank accounts?"

Bai Qing's pupils contracted slightly, and she abruptly looked up at her younger brother: "Are you going to burn money?"

"This isn't about wasting money, it's about optimizing resource allocation." Bai Jingyou took back his phone and casually closed the car window. "Besides, I've already had someone tip off Feng Rui, so he can cooperate with Master Zhao in putting on this good show."

……

The following morning, at the Zhao Group headquarters, in the top-floor office.

Zhao Hongtu didn't sleep well last night, and his eyes were a little puffy, but he was unusually excited.

He was wearing a dark red Tang suit, holding a pair of new lion's head walnuts, and listening to his subordinates' report.

"Fourth Master, it's done."

The speaker was a middle-aged man with a fierce face, Zhao Hongtu's third confidant. "I've spoken to the eight large concrete mixing plants around Beijing, as well as the steel traders in Tianjin Port. Anyone who dares to send even a grain of sand to the Northwest Hub construction site is going against the Huajing Association."

"What did they say?" Zhao Hongtu squinted, enjoying the thrill of being in control.

"Needless to say? They all swore they'd never supply that brat from the Bai family." The third brother chuckled. "Fourth Master, you wouldn't believe it, those bastards were terrified when they heard you'd spoken. In this circle, who dares to disrespect you?"

"Hmph, they know what's good for them." Zhao Hongtu snorted coldly, turning the walnut in his hand.

……

10:00 AM, DeepBlue Technology Building.

Contrary to what was described as chaos, the entire office area was so quiet that only the sound of keyboards clicking could be heard, and the air was filled with the calm and order of precision instruments in operation.

Inside the conference room, a huge projection screen displayed a real-time logistics map of Beijing and its surrounding areas.

Lin Lanfeng stood in front of the screen, holding a laser pointer in his hand. His usually indifferent face now showed a hint of fanaticism.

"Boss, the fish has taken the bait."

Lin Lanfeng pointed to the large number of red dots that suddenly lit up on the screen, "Zhao Hongtu just issued a blackout order. Those suppliers have agreed to cut off supplies on the surface, but in reality, they are under tremendous inventory pressure. Zhao Hongtu's slow payment collection in the past two quarters has tied up a lot of their funds. Cutting off supplies now is equivalent to cutting off their only source of cash flow."

Bai Jingyou sat in the main seat, holding a cup of black coffee, his expression calm: "Then let's stop their bleeding."

"The DeepBlue Supply Chain Platform officially launched its beta version ten minutes ago." Lin Lanfeng pressed the Enter key. "We've pushed out a fast payment agreement to building material suppliers around Beijing. They don't need to take sides; they just need to register a sole proprietorship and use our logistics fleet for transit. Goods arrive, money arrives."

"In addition," Lin Lanfeng's lips curled into a sly smile, "we slightly increased the purchase price, about 5% higher than the market price. Consider this money as hush money for them."

"5%?" Zhang Yi, sitting next to him, gasped. "Young Master Bai, how much money does that cost in a day? That's real money!"

Zhang Yi came here today specifically to inspect the situation, originally hoping to see Bai Jingyou make a fool of himself, but she didn't expect him to pull this stunt.

"Mr. Zhang, that's not how you calculate it." Bai Jingyou put down his coffee cup and looked at Zhang Yi. "This 5% isn't buying building materials; it's buying Zhao Hongtu's life."

"Once these suppliers have tasted the benefits of cash payments, they will no longer be able to tolerate Zhao Hongtu's overbearing terms of withholding payments for three months. It is easy to go from frugality to extravagance, but difficult to go from extravagance to frugality. As long as this loophole is opened, the alliance of interests that Zhao Hongtu has built over twenty years will be shattered like a sandcastle by this wave of cash flow."

Zhang Yi was stunned.

Looking at the excessively young man in front of her, she suddenly felt a chill run down her spine.

This isn't road construction; it's clearly digging up Zhao Hongtu's ancestral grave! And with a golden hoe!

"But..." Zhang Yi was still a little worried, "What if Zhao Hongtu finds out? What if he sends people to intercept the convoy..."

"He can't stop us." Bai Jingyou pointed to the dense green dots on the screen, like ants carrying food. "Our convoy doesn't take the main roads; it takes hundreds of capillary-like rural roads calculated using big data. Moreover, the goods aren't transported by large trucks, but by thousands of privately owned trucks registered on the platform. Unless he sets up checkpoints at every intersection in Beijing, he won't even see our taillights."

Just then, Chen Mo pushed open the door and entered, holding a tablet computer in his hand.

"Boss, the first batch of cement and steel bars has arrived. General Manager Feng sent a message saying that Zhao Hongtu is still drinking tea and listening to music in his office, thinking that we have stopped work."

Bai Jingyou stood up and straightened the hem of his suit jacket.

"very good."

He walked to the floor-to-ceiling window and looked down at the vast city below.

"President Lin, pass the word down to increase the purchase volume. Since Fourth Master is so generous, giving up his market share, then we should accept it without hesitation. Tell those suppliers that as long as the quality of the goods meets the standards, Deep Blue will take as much as they have."

"Also," Bai Jingyou turned around, a glint of light flashing in his eyes, "give President Chen He a gift. Send him a copy of the real-time data from our supply chain system. I think he'll be very interested in this new toy."

……

3 PM.

Zhao Hongtu was in a teahouse, bragging to a few old friends about his glorious past.

"Back in the day, I was in the southern part of the city..."

"Ring ring ring—!"

A sudden, urgent phone call interrupted his interest.

Zhao Hongtu frowned and glanced at the caller ID. It was Lao Liu, the biggest steel trader in Tianjin Port.

"Hey, Lao Liu, are you here to pledge your loyalty? Haha, no need to be so polite..."

"Fourth Master! Something's happened!" Old Liu's anxious voice came from the other end of the phone, almost choked with tears. "My warehouse is empty!"

"What?" Zhao Hongtu was stunned. "Empty? Robbed?"

"It wasn't a theft! It's sold out! Those distributors downstairs, I don't know what's gotten into them, they took all the stock from the warehouse this morning! I couldn't stop them!"

"Where did they go?" Zhao Hongtu's heart skipped a beat.

"I don't know! They said someone offered a high price for cash, so they moved all the goods out overnight! Fourth Master, this...this...I can't control this!"

Before Zhao Hongtu could react, his other phone rang.

"Fourth Master! Something terrible has happened! The trucking fleet at the concrete mixing plant has gone on strike. They're saying some Deep Blue platform is offering double the freight rates, so they've all gone there to get work!"

"Fourth Master! Over at the cement factory..."

"Fourth Master..."

Within just ten minutes, seven or eight pieces of bad news exploded one after another like bombs.

Zhao Hongtu's face went from rosy to pale, then from pale to ashen, and finally to deathly gray.

His hands trembled as he reached for the walnuts on the table, but he accidentally knocked over the teacup.

The scalding hot tea spilled on his trousers, but he seemed completely oblivious.

"Dark blue... cash payment... high price..."

Zhao Hongtu muttered to himself. At this moment, he finally understood what Bai Jingyou had said at the banquet that day.

"I'm here to fix the road."

This isn't road repair; they've blown up his old road!

"Get the car ready!" Zhao Hongtu jumped up, his voice hoarse like a broken bellows. "To the construction site! I want to see it for myself!"

He didn't believe it! He couldn't believe that his impregnable empire, built up over so many years, could be turned into a sieve in half a day by a mere youth!

However, when his convoy arrived at the entrance of the Northwest Hub construction site with great momentum, the scene before him left him completely dumbfounded.

What should have been a desolate construction site, shut down and awaiting materials, is now bustling with activity.

Countless unidentified small trucks lined up in a long queue, moving in and out in an orderly fashion. The unloading area was piled high with brand-new steel and cement, even more than the previous inventory!

At the main entrance, a huge LED screen was displaying a line of text:

DeepBlue Supply Chain: Cash on delivery, no payment delays. We welcome all business owners to cooperate for mutual benefit.

Beneath that screen, Bai Jingyou stood wearing a black trench coat, his hands in his pockets.

He seemed to have anticipated Zhao Hongtu's arrival.

Through the car window, their eyes met in mid-air.

Zhao Hongtu saw the young man smile slightly at him, then raise his hand and gesture for him to enter.

That gesture was as if inviting a deposed king to witness the ascension of a new king.

"puff--!"

Overcome with anger and anxiety, Zhao Hongtu felt a sweet taste in his throat and almost spat a mouthful of blood onto the windshield.

"Go back...go back quickly..."

Zhao Hongtu slumped in the back seat, looking as if he had aged ten years in an instant. The pair of walnuts he had been playing with for decades fell onto the floor mat with a thud and rolled into a dark corner.